Happy New Year to all!
I wanted to give you the opportunity to react and discuss before responding, and now that the holidays are behind us, I felt it was a good time to respond.
I appreciate those who thanked me for the heads up and the transparency, who acknowledged it is hard for all of us, showed empathy for those impacted and gave me and the team encouragements. Some even offered to help. Thank You.
I believe we will rebound and thrive. We are very focused on our mission. RETO MOTO and its external partners understand this as an opportunity to regroup and get the right focus for H&G with a longer runway to execute our vision.
I stated we are focused on data analytics more than ever, we also integrate scientific frameworks to guide us in taking the right decisions including play-testing and cognitive science because it has to be at the heart of every F2P game. Of course we are also relying on feedback coming from our players, which helps us identify issues that require further investigation.
I mentioned we will release more regular content. To be clear, without new content we just don’t get visibility, without visibility we are not going to grow, it is as simple as that. Also, while I understand you want what exists to be improved before getting new content, these tasks are not being worked on by the same team members. If anything, as the new content we put out drives new players to our game, we believe this is a great opportunity for veterans to train them into veterans that can fight alongside them. New content is undeniably showing we keep the game vibrant and produces new ways to play, adding not only new vehicles and weapons and skins, but also new maps and more.
I acknowledge that some of you want to see very specific things in H&G, we will take this into account when defining what we set ourselves to do in 2019 shortly, however, when we don’t focus on something some of you ask from us, it is not because we don’t care, but rather, because sometimes we need to do things in a particular order, or because too few players are behind that request, or because we know it would cause issues and we are trying to give you as much visibility as we can on that through the Development Overview.
That said, we are planning to improve many elements of the game in the next months including things you have asked like having a better display of in-game progression, improve matchmaking, continue to reduce waiting points before being matched and of course bring multiple improvements to the Deploy! Drive! Destroy! update. We continuously maintain a list of player feedback and we do everything we can to address those so keep giving us feedback and helping us making Heroes & Generals WWII better!
I also talked about a refresh of our visual identity and some might wonder why we would focus on that. A new game logo, artwork, and narrative will drive our vision for the future, which is to deliver high quality and elevate our game to a true franchise.
Finally, I want to invite you to an AMA (Ask me Anything) on our new Discord channel on Thursday January the 17th at 17:00 CET to give you an opportunity to ask me more questions if any and discuss about the future.
Heroes & Generals has so much potential, I hope you will come on the journey with us!
RETO.JM

I appreciate the support and the questions,
let us regroup and come back to you with more comprehensive information when the time is right for us.
Keep the questions / discussion coming though, I will answer as soon as possible.
RETO.JM

Everyone,
We have initiated a process to restructure our studio today and as a consequence we had to inform our organization of a sizable staff reduction. Following this we will have 21 employed. It has been a difficult decision, and we had to say goodbye to 18 very talented and skilled people. But I am certain that it is the right decision, creating a smaller, profitable and agile organization. It will allow us to regroup and go forward in the best possible way.
By restructuring the studio and reducing staff we gain a solid economic foundation and a longer runway to make sure that a) RETO MOTO is a thriving business and b) we will be able to further grow HEROES & GENERALS.
We remain committed to HEROES & GENERALS.
A major update will release in December. Going forward we plan to rely even more on data analytics and metrics combined with regular content releases. We already have more than 14 million registered users worldwide, with many more signing up every day, I am confident we will see significant growth in the coming years.
Of course, it is tough on everyone in our organization, and the last couple of days have been emotional, but we needed to act to secure a sustainable business.
It was important that you get this information quickly from RETO MOTO and me, first. We are committed to be transparent with our players, and I will follow up with you in the next few days and after we regroup with the remaining team. In the meantime you can read the release we made today here:
https://www.reto.dk/2018/11/27/reto-moto-restructures-studio/
RETO.JM

Soldiers,
We are all encouraged by your positive comments, thank you!
I understand you want action, you want us to deliver. We all do as well and we will deliver!
There are many tasks ahead of us, some of which will have less immediate visible impact for you, the players, but will have many benefits in the long run in terms of service stability and game quality. We will use our best efforts to communicate on what we do through a roadmap approach.
Some of you also commented on the idea that we should focus on fixing existing features rather than creating new ones. I fully agree with that concept and I believe it is in line with my previous couple of points.
Through transparency and regular communications, we are confident we will deliver what is expected of us. Until then, please be patient and see you in game!
Reto-JM

Soldiers,
Thank you for all your encouraging messages and suggestions. I'll keep it short and will let Reto.Robotron3000 give you more details after this.
There is great feedback here and a number of the themes in your messages will be addressed by Reto.RedBjarne tomorrow during the Q&A & Why #4 on our Twitch channel. I know that he is going to talk about what we are currently working on and go into a bit more details on Vehicle Handling!
Again we have a lot to do, I understand action speaks louder than words, but I want to keep the communication channels open so we can not only do what we say but also say what we do.
Take it away @Reto.Robotron3000

Everyone,
our intention is not to be misleading, it is very clear that 12M is not a CCU or an MAU number, trust me, I wish it was, maybe one day :-)
We will add "registered" to my statement, I don't know many companies who are communicating their CCU or MAU numbers so it should have been clear.
Please keep in mind the numbers shared on external sites are attempting to reflect Steam Players only.
Have a great weekend and see you in game!
JM

Hello everyone,
Thank you for your messages of support, your best wishes and recommendations. I enjoyed reading them.
See you in game and looking forward to meet at least some of you in person soon.
JM